The King filled the glasses on the table with the light, sparkling, golden wine. "Good!" Uncle Bond crowed. "Now you can sit down, and--sink out into the back-cloth. On the other hand, if you prefer to remain on the stage, a glass of wine is useful stage business." The King sat down at the table opposite to Uncle Bond. At the moment, bewildered and almost dazed as he was, he felt very much like a theatrical super, assisting at a stage meal. "I am giving you a wing, Alfred. No breast!" Uncle Bond continued, proceeding to portion out the dismembered chicken. "My action is symbolical. This is between ourselves, and outside our stage play! There are not many places where they give you the wing of the chicken, are there? You will continue to be given the wing of the chicken here. You will continue to be received here, as you are received nowhere else. Our friend Alfred will find no change, in his reception here--whatever happens. You are reassured, I hope? Your worst fears are stilled? Good! Help yourself to salad. And try the wine. I can recommend it!" The King took the plate of chicken which the little man held out to him, and helped himself to salad, mechanically. This commonplace routine of the meal served to steady him. In some measure reassured by Uncle Bond's whimsical symbolism, he was relieved to find that he could eat. Uncle Bond helped himself from the salad bowl in turn, tried the wine, and then settled down, happily, to the meal, which he had been so unwilling to essay alone. But the play of his knife and fork, energetic as it was, did not interfere, for long, with his talk. "And now to resume our comedy!" he chuckled, in a minute or two. "Between ourselves, my boy, I am enjoying the present situation enormously. But 'Chorus' explanations are necessary, and cannot wait. Therefore-- 'Enter Chorus!' "I have known who you were almost, if not quite, from the first, Alfred. Judith knew you first, of course. Judith recognized you at sight. My dear boy, how could you imagine that it could be otherwise? Have you ever considered the possibilities of the case? "Judith was born in the Navy. For years she lived in the Navy. She married into the Navy. Of course, she knew 'Our Sailor Prince.' As likely as not his photograph has adorned her mantelpiece ever since the far-away days when she was a romantic schoolgirl. 'Cynthia's' romantic schoolgirls, at any rate, are always like that! "And I myself? Am I not a member of many clubs? 'Alfred York' was hardly likely to be an impenetrable incognito with me, was it? Wherever you go, too, although you are so strangely unconscious of the fact, you carry about with you a historic face!